



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT THE DEDICATION 

OF THE 

CENOTA^PH, 

ERECTED IN MP^MORY OF THE FORMER PUPILS 
NAZARETH HALL WHO FELL IN DEFENC^E 
OF THEIR ■ COUNTRY, IN THE WAR 
OF THE REBELLION. 

(JUNP] il. 18GS). 

BY 

EDMUND DE SCHWEINITZ, 

ALUMNUS OF THE CLASS OF 
1834. k,' 



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BETHLEHEM: 
A. C. & PI. T. CLAUDER, PRINTERS, 

1868. \ 

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ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE DEDICATIOIN' 

t 

OF THE 



CENOTAPH, 



ERECTED IN MEMORY OF THE FORMER PUPILS OF NAZARETH 

HALL WHO FELL IN DEFENCE OF THEIR COUNTRY, 

IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 



(JUNE 11, 1868). 



BY 



EDMUND DE SCHWEINITZ, 

ALUMNUS OF THE CLASS OF 
1834- 



BETHLEHEM: 
A. C. & H. H. T. CLAUDER, PRINTERS, 

1868. 






PREFATOEY NOTE. 

The follc»wing Oration is printed, and sent to the former pupils of Nazareth 
Hall, in accordance with a resolution unanimously adopted at the social gathering 
of the Reunion Society, held in the afternoon of the 11th of June, in the Chapel 
of the Hall. 



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On ground rich in the associations of our boyhood, in the first 
days of opening summer, that used to be more fragrant than their 
full-blown roses, under all circumstances of wind and weather — 
let them have been bright and serene, as Ave hoped to-day would prove, 
or dark and stormy, as it has turned out to be* — because they brought 
us the " examination holidays," we are met, alumni of Nazareth 
Hall, to celebrate another Eeunion. For more than twelve years, 
such gatherings, with occasional interruptions, have taken place, 
and have been times ofunalloyed pleasure, when we forgot the cares of 
life, laid aside its burdens, and were boys again. To-day, how- 
ever, we come not merely with this purpose. We have a mission 
to fulfil, a work of love to do. As those of our associates, whose 
decease was reported at former Reunions, won a tribute, of respect 
from the lips of ^me friend, so, on the present occasion, we all 
unite in perpetuating the name*, and embalming the memory, of a 
number of our fellow-almuni, who, whether we were personally 
acquainted with them or not, had us all for their friends, because 
they died for our common country, and belonged to the ranks of 
those whom the God of our fathers summoned to its rescue, in the 



*. A very hard rain-storm, which continued all day, prevented the dedicatory 
exercises from being held in the open air around the monument. 



hour of its direst peril, when its glorious union of Commonwealths 
was broken, and its history as a world-power seemed drawing to an 
end. 

To honor such men is an intuitive impulse of the heart, a pre- 
rogative of free citizenship, an evidence of true patriotism. It has 
been done wherever the people governed, since the days of Sparta 
and Athens. While monarchies exalt the conqueror, republics pay 
reverence to their defenders. While Alexander the Great erected 
twelve towers on the banks of the distant Hyphasis, to mark his 
irresistible advance into the kingdoms of India, the pillars at Mara- 
thon bore the names of heroes who, on that immortal field, rolled 
back the tide of Persian invasion, and saved Greece from a despot's 
heel. While the Triumphal Arch at Paris blazons those battles of 
Napoleon that laid Europe in glittering chains. Bunker Hill is 
crowned with a monument which tells of deeds that gave to Liber- 
ty, both in her civil and religious manifestations, a home such as 
she never had before, and made this Western buttress of the world 
a refuge for the oppressed of every land. 

For us, however, as a body of almuni, and at a Reunion in these 
never to be forgotten precincts, to offer such a tribute, is to exalt 
not only the memory of fellow-pupils, but also the name of our 
Alma Mater, whose teachings first produced in them a tendency 
and an aim, whose instructions helped to shape our course through 
life. That block of stone proclaims as well what an American 
citizen will sacrifice for the sake of Liberty and the Union, as 
what one of the oldest educational institutions of America can ac- 
complish in making a citizen. 

It is from this point of view, that I wish to address you. I can- 
not consistently occupy any other. The war in which our breth- 
ren fell is over. Who does not devoutly thank God for that? 
The mighty armies, of which they formed a part, have melted 
away as suddenly, I might almost say, as miraculously, as they 
sprang into existence, and have given back to the family, to the 
pursuits of business, and to the Church, elements of manly activi- 



ty and well-tried strength. The stormy events of the conffiet, the 
news of battles Avon or lost, the daily bulletins from the camp 
or the field, and all that made that time a period of unparal- 
leled excitement, belong to the past. And so do the groans of the 
wounded, the wails of the dying, the tears of the bereaved and the 
broken-hearted. Peace smiles upon us and our children. The 
summer's grain covers the ensanguined fields of Antietam and 
Gettysburg. The broad highways of travel are no longer ob- 
structed; the great arteries of trade no more refuse to pulsate. On 
the waters of the Mississippi, commerce is joyfully doing its work ; 
the railroads of Pennsylvania and Virginia are again in friendly 
harmony, avenues of legitimate barter, means of union for friend 
and friend. The righteous indignation of the hour is soothed; 
the bitter animosities of the strife are allayed. Hence, although we 
are not here in order to call evil good, and good evil, in order to 
put darkness for light, and light for darkness, we do not come to 
say what would have been proper amidst the experiences of the 
Rebellion itself, while its issues were still doubtful, while plain 
truths and strong words were necessary to vindicate our cause. 
We have no enemies to denotmce. God has ordained that the peo- 
ple of America, whether in the North or the South, should be 
one and remain indivisible. That, however, which we are not to 
forget, and which we can magnify " 'with charity for all and malice 
to none," is the jprinciple which led our brethren to yield their 
lives, a principle setting them before us, first, as scholars of the 
" good old Hall," and then as soldiers of the grand army of the 
Union. 

Nazareth Hall has a twofold mission, namely, to train the mind, 
and to mould the character. In pursuing the latter, the funda- 
mental rule which it imparts is faithfulness to duty. This is the 
ground-work of its peculiar system of discipline, the substance of 
all those lessons, and the life of all those plastic exercises, that are 
to form the man. This gives tone to its social relations, and con- 
stitutes the element in which its teachers and scholars move. It 



brings tliis tenet of Moral Philosophy down from the region of 
theory, and makes it a power in the boy for practical life. By this 
law, which rings out in the early watches of the morning, when 
the bell sounds the signal for rising, and which then guides whatever is 
done through the day, in the hours of study or recitation, in the house 
or on the play-ground, until the word is spoken, at bed-time, that 
hushes the room-company into absolute silence, Nazareth Hall has 
performed wonders, coerced, without an effort, many an ungovern- 
able lad, saved him from ruin, and sent him forth to usefulness 
and prosperity. Other schools may do more in the way of a bril- 
liant show of knowledge, but none surpass it in building character 
upon this solid corner-stone. 

Now the object of the late war, on the part of the loyal States, was 
not ambition, or conquest, or glory for its own sake merely. It 
was resistance against the most gigantic and causeless rebellion ever 
originated, and, consequently, a necessary act of self-preservation, 
an inalienable right to hold fast that which the Almighty Ruler of 
the woHd had himself bestowed upon our fathers, in their strug- 
gle for independence, and which had crowned us with the richest 
benefactions. Or, rather, to state the case in the words of that 
man for the crisis whom the Lord of Hosts raised up and treason 
struck down, who sleeps, a martyr, in his Western grave, aud has 
the prairie-winds to sing his requiem throughout all generations — 
words as transparent as his life, and as noble as his work — it was 
" that the nation should, under God, have a new birth of freedom, 
and the government of the people, by the people, and for the peo- 
ple, should not perish from the earth." This was the call which 
stirred the hearts of millions, this was the solemn obligation of the 
hour. 

And, therefore, the response came, literally, from every avoca- 
tion of life. Men left the anvil and the plow, the counting-house 
aud the workshop, the professional office and the college ; and ar- 
mies were marshaled which formed the bone and sinew of the peo- 
ple, represented its intelligence and wealth, and were animated by 



a lofty purpose and a high resolve. On the same scale, such a re- 
sult was never accomplished before, in any nation. Hosts gather- 
ed unpreced.ented in point of numbers since the times of Xerxes, and 
yet, for the most part, were hosts of freemen, of citizens who volunta- 
rily seized the musket with the same hands that deposited the ballot, 
by which they govern themselves. A greater contrast cannot be im- 
agined than that between our soldiers and those who, from year to 
year, in war and peace, make of Europe one vast camp. The for- 
mer were conscious embodiments of a principle, the latter are un- 
conscious machines, set in motion by a royal cabinet, and working 
under the strain of inexorable discipline. The enthusiasm of the 
one was the natural emotion of a patriotic heart, clinging to its 
national brith-right, a thing of life, stirring the depths of their be- 
ing ; the enthusiasm of the other is drilled into them, like the use 
of the needle-gun, and does not soar higher than a constrained re- 
gard for glory as an abstraction. 

Of a call that produced such an " uprising of a great people," 
the almuni of Nazareth Hall were not unmindful. With honest 
pride, let it be proclaimed, to-day^ that two hundred and thirty 
"Hall boys " arrayed themselves under the flag of their country, 
helped to save it from dismemberment, aided to bring on a new 
era in the history of Liberty, and to send her rejoicing and blessing 
over the earth. It is as honorable a record as any one can wish 
for, as genuine a satisfaction as any achievement in life will con- 
fer, as rich a legacy as can be left to children and chiklren's chil- 
dren. The time is coming when the descendants of the Union 
soldiers, in the War of the Rebellion, will be not less proud of 
them than men now are of their Revolutionary sires, when the 
musket that was carried to the bloody field of the Wilderness, 
and the sword that flashed in the morning's sun of the assaults 
upon Vicksburg, will be heir-looms as sacred as the present gene- 
ration esteems like relics from Lexington or Yorktown. 

But what was it that induced so large a proportion of former 
pupils to leave their business, and forsake their homes, in order to 



8 

enlist as soldiers ? I turn to look upon the " old Hall," I remem- 
ber its class-rooms and chapel, I recall its lessons and life, and, 
with that deep conviction which experience gains, I answer : It 
was the grand principle laid as the foundation of their character 
when they were boys in this School, it was faithfulness to duty here 
taught and learned. They paid what they owed their country. 

This principle found its most perfect type in those of their num- 
ber whose memory we signalize to-day, for they carried it out to 
the end, and, in the strength of it, gave all that a man has, even 
their lives. 

Ere I proceed to illustrate this, it is fitting that I should read 
the roll of our honored dead. It is as follows : 

David Baker, the oldest on the list, of the class of 1822. 

Charles Berg, of the class of 1829. 

Frank Pott, of the class of 1830. 

Arthur Van Vleck, of the class of 1835. 

Charles M. Stout, of the class of 1841. 

Eugene Clewell, of the class of 1843. 

George Beitel, of the class of 1845. 

Charles Smiedle, of the class of 1847. 

AsHER Gaylord, of the class of 1848. 

Joseph Bachman, of the class of 1849. 

David T. Latimer, the first who fell, and one of the first 
Union soldiers killed. Christian F. Smith, Edmund Shouse, 
John F. Wood, and Van Brunt M. Bergen, all of the class of 
1853. 

John Whitmer, Horace Bennet, Daniel Fasig, and James 
J. Grafton, of the class of 1854. 

George Fream, Benjamin F. Landell, and Charles Eey- 
ERSON, of the class of 1855. 

Clarence Kampman, John Hagen, and William Ladd, 
the youngest on the list, but 16 years of age, all of the class of 
1858. 

Edwin Skirving, of the class of 1860. 



Pliny Jewett, of the class of 1861. 

Twenty-seven in all, who were either killed in battle or died of 
disease contracted while in the service. 

Ten of them were sent out by Pennsylvania, four by Ohio, three 
by New York, two by New Jersey, one by Massachusetts, one by 
Connecticut, one by Illinois, one by Iowa, one by Kentucky, three 
belonged to the Navy; and the fields of Great Bethel and Har- 
per's Ferry, of Averysborough and Pocotalico^ of Chattanooga 
and Vicksburg, of Antietam, Williamsburg and Hatcher's Run, 
together with the blood-stained deck of the Frigate Cumberland, 
that would not yield even to the iron monster which attacked her, 
but was engulphed by the waters of Chesapeake Bay, with her 
colors flying, make up the places where our brethren, in the appro- 
priate language of the monument, " died that their country might 
be healed and live." It thus appears, that in the Regiments of 
nine of the loyal States, as well as in that puissant navy which 
filled the maratime powers of the world with astonishment, and in 
battles fought along the Border, in the West, and in the South, from 
one of the earliest to one of the latest, the alumni of Nazareth Hall 
were represented by these their comrades, in everything that was 
true, brave and faithful. 

Without going into all the details of their service, which will 
be given at another time, in the course of the exercises of this day, 
I will adduce but a few facts to establish the position I have 
taken. 

One of the fallen was my own class-mate. I knew him well, 
both in the Hall and afterward in the Theological Seminary. He 
was the most innocent of boys, and the most guileless of men. Dif- 
fident, shrinking even from play as soon as it grew boisterous, an 
obscure corner his retreat and a book his friend, kind-hearted, too, 
never resenting an injury, and bearing the banter of his compan- 
ions with unruffled patience, I would sooner have believed any- 
thing most strange, when we sat together in our class-room and 
construed that Latin line which says, " It is sweet and becoming to 



10 

die for one's country/' than that the poet's sentiment would, in his 
case, grow into a personal experience. And yet this honored com- 
panion won a medal for bravery at the battle of Chancellorville, 
bore himself, under all circumstances, with unvarying gallantry 
as a soldier, and with true heroism as a Christian, until his heart- 
strings cracked amidst the nameless horrors of Libby Prison. 
Nothing under heaven but a deep sense of duty, and a lofty deter- 
mination to be faithful, could have induced him to enter the army 
and expose himself to the associations of the camp and the other 
experiences of military life, which, in themselves considered, were 
as foreign to his nature as they were repulsive to his feelings. 

And touching the rest whom I have named, it will stir your 
hearts, my friends, as it did mine, when you will hear their records. 
It is impossible to read the letters, written by those who knew 
them in the army, without gaining a vivid consciousness of the 
operations of that principle of power which Nazareth Hall taught 
them. In every instance in which the diligent search, deserving 
of all praise, made by the Treasurer of the Monument Association, 
for the incidents of their military history, was rewarded with suc- 
cess, something true and honorable, something to be proud of, has 
been brought out. 

Of one his Captain says, " he met his fate with a manliness never 
excelled," and of another, " he presented, in an eminent degree^ 
the qualities of a soldier and a gentleman," while the Surgeon, who 
witnessed his death-struggle, calls him a " manly and noble boy." 
A third receives this testimony : " He was a brave and fearless 
soldier, respected by all the men and officers." A fourth, who was 
mortally wounded while leading a desperate charge at Vicksburg, 
stood so high in his company, that, with one accord, the survivors 
sent to his mourning family a tribute of respect in memory of his 
virtues. Several were promoted from the ranks for bravery in the 
field. Around the body of an officer, brought to Hilton Head for 
burial, who had marched at the head of his men, across a corn- 
field, swept by a terrific fire, as coolly as if he were drilling them. 



11 

and who was shot, later in the action, there gathered persons high 
in rank, that had been acquainted with him, exclaiming, " Brave 
Man ! Brave Man !" Another officer, to use the words of his own 
Colonel, " in everything he said and did was always manly, honor- 
able and noble." General Slocum held him in such esteem, that 
he repoted his death to Governor Andrews, of Massachusetts, des- 
ignating him as " one of the best officers under his command," 
while General Sherman himself lamented his loss, and seemed to 
feel it as though it were a personal bereavement. Still another, 
who, after filling various positions of trust, was finally made Ordi- 
nance officer of the Middle Military District, labored so incessantly 
in the discharge of his arduous duties, that his health failed. But 
he would not relinquish them, until peremptorily ordered home to 
recruit. He obeyed, taking with him, however, the papers of the 
Department, and resuming his work under the parental roof. At 
last he could write no more. Then he employed amanuenses, and 
dictated to these until the very day of his death, on which his 
father sent all his returns completed to Washington. Even the 
youngest on the roll, that lad of sixteen summers, who went forth 
from a happy home of ease and wealth, is not without a record ; 
even of him it is said, " he was faithful as a soldier, and much 
loved by his company." 

It is unnecessary to bring forward more facts in order to sub- 
stantiate my argument. The testimony, now given, by officers of 
their men and by superiors of their officers, has a clear ring, and 
tells us unmistakably that faithfulness to duty was the distinctive 
trait of the sons of Nazareth Hall who fell in defence of their 
country ; that as their character was moulded in the days of their 
boyhood, so it came out in well-marked lines of beauty under cir- 
cumstances which, more than any other, try men, and show the 
stuff that they are made of. Who, then, is there here who will not 
glory in our Alma Mater ? She did her part in the most moment- 
ous struggle of this age. Other schools performed theirs', all 
honor be to them ! She, however, caused her influence to be felt 



12 

in her own peculiar way, as an institution which had drawn its 
life, for eighty years, not merely from human philosophy, but also 
from tlie depths of that knowledge which reveals the Eternal Son of 
God as a Teacher and a Lawgiver and a Redeemer to the world. 

Therefore, we, the Alumni of Nazareth Hall, gathered, to-day, 
from all quarters of the land, and counting among our number rep- 
resentatives of nearly eVjCry class back to the closing year of the 
last century, now dedicate this cenotaph, with sincere respect, to 
the memory of our brethren, and, with filial reverence, to the honor 
of the School^ and adopt,, as an appropriate formula, one of the sen- 
tences graven on the stone: " The Academy is the nursing-mothsr 
of patriots, rearing her children in the ways of truth and free- 
dom." 

Long may this monument stand, to show the present genera- 
tion of pupils, and other generations that will come after them^, 
what those patriots did whose names it bears^ what this Academy 
can perform, through the sons whom it educates, and what the 
Lord God Omnipotent wrought for the salvation of our country ! 

It will not be a sectional land-mark ; for,^ although it is perhaps- 
too early to expect such a thing now, yet, eventually, those who- 
preserved the Federal Union from disintegration, and thus gave a 
new impulse to the development of our popular institutions, and 
originated the new relations by which the same is conditioned, will 
become the common heroes of the whole country. This is a truth 
established beyond^all cavil by the results of the War of the Rev- 
olution. There w^ere thousands of Tories then, who labored,, with, 
heart and soul, for the triumph of Great Britain ; but there is not 
one American now who does not glorify the men through whose- 
devotion and sufferings and blood the United States were made 
free. 

But, in a higher sense, this cenotaph will be more than even a 
national memorial. That is a contracted vii^ion which fails to see 
in the events of the Rebellion an issue for the entire brotherhood of 
man. That is a dwarfish philosophy which is unable to grasp a 
divine p'aii in history. 



13 



"' For I doubt not thro' all ages one increasing purpose runs 

"And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns." 

This purpose is ripening fast. Nations rise against nations, and 
peoples are divided against themselves. But " hast thou not 
iaiown ? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, 
the Creator of the ends of the earth, faintetli not, neither is weary?" 
Like the throne upon which He sits, His design stands fast, as it ever 
<lid from the beginning ; and in order to its consummation, " the 
nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust 
of the balance." Above all their wars and tumults and shouts of 
-conquest, sounds the voice of the Everlasting Counsel, saying, " The 
Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice J" Yes, let the earth rejoice, for 
the morning's red of a new time is breaking. We live in the grand- 
est epoch the world has yet seen. It is a glorious thing to have 
one's being in such an age, to be a factor in its development, to 
fcelong to a people that has been ordained, I reverently believe, to 
lead the van in subduing our globe to the sway of that liberty 
which is perfect, because Christ is its Author, and of that glory 
which is eternal, because it flows from universal righteousness and 
peace. 

In this exalted sense, my friends, let us, as we are gathered here in 
the shadow of our Alma Mater, and in the presence of yonder ceno- 
taph, learn anew the lessons of our boyhood. We will go back to 
our several sj^heres of labor faithful to duty— duty to our fellow 
men, cnr ccuntrv, and our God. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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